Glee Skips Golden Opportunity to Talk About Sex Education

In the season finale of Glee, Quinn flashes back to the day she had sex with Puck, the moment that would transform her from cheer captain to pregnant teen. Quinn, the president of the high school Celibacy Club, asks Puck about protection. "Don't worry," he responds. "I've got it covered."

It's obvious that Quinn is not taking birth control; the protection that Puck should be using is a condom. But does he? Is Quinn one of the unlucky girls who get pregnant despite using a condom, or is Puck's response just a ploy to get laid, but he doesn't bother? (To stick with one topic, I'm not going to get into the issues of consent involved here, given that Quinn is uncertain about having sex and Puck's response is to attempt to get her to drink another wine cooler.)

We can assume that Quinn, whose uber-conservative parents kicked her out of the house when the pregnancy was revealed, didn't learn about safe sex at home. And it's also safe to assume that the Ohio high school offers a typical strain of abstinence-only education, which leaves students with zero knowledge about sex. After all, Finn believed that his sperm swam through a hot tub to impregnate Quinn. And cheerleader Britney, whose promiscuity is emphasized, nonetheless asks after being advised to use protection, "Does he mean like a burglar alarm?"

In having sex-out-of-wedlock with Puck, Quinn becomes one of the many teenage girls who engage in sexual intercourse despite abstinence-only-until-marriage classes and virginity pledges. (Puck points out that her friends Britney and Santana broke their pledge.) And when these girls do have sex, they are far less likely to use contraception, because you know what? They hardly know what it is.

Glee has done a pretty awesome job addressing the issue of sexual orientation, through Kurt's coming and his adorable dad, who struggles through his own prejudices to always stand up for his gay son. (It could do better with Britney and Santana's queerness.) Given how pissed the Religious Right is over making gay the "new normal," you know the show must be doing something right. On other key issues, it doesn't always hit the mark. And despite the ongoing storyline with Quinn struggling as a pregnant teenager, the show's writers missed a golden opportunity to address the harm done by inadequate sex education with the explicitness given to Kurt's sexuality.

There is one episode of Glee that takes a more direct approach to talking about teenagers and sex and abstinence ed. In the very second episode of the show, there's an incredible scene when Rachel joins the Celibacy Club to get closer to Finn. The irony of this club, however, is that the boys go to try to seduce the girls, and many participants are sexually active. Fed up, Rachel bursts out: "Did you know that most studies have demonstrated that celibacy doesn't work in high schools? ... The only way to deal with teen sexuality is to be prepared. That's what contraception is for."

Contraception, gasp! Quinn attacks, "Don't you dare mention the "C" word." Then Rachel crowns it off with a defense of female sexuality: "You want to know a dirty little secret that none of them want you to know? Girls want sex just as much as guys do." Thank you, Glee, for recognizing female sexuality. But from that point forward, it missed about a million opportunities to address how, duh, abstinence-only education contributed to Quinn becoming pregnant. It's a big elephant in the room to just choose to gloss over.

Photo credit: Jose Javato